Dud.
I’ve had so many of these lately that I’m starting to get discouraged. Is it me? Is it the pattern? Is it my ability to pair the fabric and pattern? Am I distracted? Gah. Whatever. Here’s the nitty gritty.
Love the skirt pattern in the magazine.
It’s the one on the right. Yada yada.
It looks okay, right?
The back looks okay too. It has some weird butt stuff going on, maybe, but not bad.
Nice topstitching? Check.
Skirt in action? Blech. The skirt is on the bias. I interfaced the back zipper portion. The more I messed with it, the more wonky it got. See the butt-bump? This is the best I could get it. Trust me, I put the zipper in a few times, I added space and took away space, I interfaced more of the back. These pictures are all lighten so you all can see the hideous wrinkles and lumps.
This is the best I could get. This is probably tighter than it needs to be at this point. It was, at one point looser, but then my butt just looked saggy. This is like the 5th version of this skirt. Let it out, take it in, let it out a little, take it in a titch. I think the seams that point away from the butt make it look wider too. That’s not where I want visual widening. Of course, I decided to emphasize it with bright white topstitching. Go, me!
I don’t know what happened. I’m an experienced sew-ist. I interface things. I staystitch when needed so things don’t stretch out. I am gentle. I know how to put in zippers. Sigh. Again, whatever.
Thoughts:
1) The front darts are widely spaced and are almost at my hips means the dart end pops out a little strangely.
2) I think I should have made the back piece on grain here. I think I would have avoided the stretching out and the pulls. I think that’s the main issue with the back. That, and me playing with it (hours of unpicking black thread on dark gray wool, fun!).
3) I started by interfacing just the zipper area plus a few inches. When the area below the zipper was sewn, the entire seam looks wavy like this. By the time it was done, the whole top to bottom was interfaced about 3” in. This helped the bottom immensely but not the area around the zipper.
Water off a duck’s back, right? Fucking ducks.
